[2023] What’s so special about skins?

I’ve been playing a little over a week now and half my comms are asking about skins. Can we trade guns for the skins? Why don’t you have skins? Where did you get those skins? I’ve even had people throw random guns at me because they want me to have a better skin. Honestly I just don’t get why my teams spend so much of their brain power on something that has no impact on the game. I’m glad there is some “customization” in the game but there’s no way I’m spending $10+ to make my gun look different and I’m also not going to spend my buy phase trying to haggle with a teammate to see if I can use their gun for the skin. Am I the only one? Is this part of the “low elo hell” I hear so much about? Thanks